


The Diary of Mattie Hawkins

by reflectivemuse



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M, Other, from my original wordpress blog, humans diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 8,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4506618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reflectivemuse/pseuds/reflectivemuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mattie Hawkins receives a diary for her birthday, she never could have expected the following events that she would be recording in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Diary of Mattie Hawkins #1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the first finale.
> 
> I don't advise skipping the entries for Leo and Niska because the ending won't make sense.

TUESDAY

I have a diary. I have a diary. A pink-and-gold bloody diary.

Happy Birthday, Self.

I blame Mum for this, not just because I could never be mad at Sophie - God help me, if she'd given me one of those talking toothbrushes I'd still have used it. But, as my mother said to me last Thursday, "You need a new outlet, darling."

Maybe it's because I wasn't paying much attention with the computer in front of me and all, but I think I said something like, "Hmm, well, the one I'm using is fine."

I continued hitting the keys, and Mum said something in her passive voice, a short bit that I truly cannot remember.

So yeah, my baby sister bought me a diary for my birthday. But I can tell by the way she was smiling at our mother that it wasn't entirely her idea.

"Don't you want to write in it now, Mattie?" Sophie asked before I went to my room for the night.

Unable to help it, I gave her a small smile. "Write about what?"

Just so you know, there isn’t a single response you could give to any of my sister’s questions that would leave her at a loss for words. Believe it, I’ve tried.

So she said, "You can write about Mia, how much you miss her and the others." She counted her fingers to remember their names: "Niska, Max, Fred. And..."

"Leo," I told her. She always forgets him. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one that doesn't.

Sophie is now playing on my bed with her blonde Arabella doll, as her way of keeping watch over me I suppose. Alright, little girl. You and Mum win.

My name is Matilda Hawkins. It's been nearly two months since we rescued a family of self-aware robots, and the most exciting thing I have to look forward to now is my driver's licence. Oh, and Dad buying a new car. I guess that's what he does whenever he feels an absence. I like our old one, even if I can remember Toby picking his nose while I was sitting next to him, or Dad struggling to sing Sophie's favourite song in a painfully high pitch. It's just...it's meant to carry a family, that's all.

Anyway, this is how my mother handles life without Mia and the other Synths: She cooks. She cleans. She sighs a lot. Says things like, “Oh, Mattie. I can’t believe you’ll graduate this year.”

I can’t believe I’ll graduate this year either. I was ready for it to have happened two years ago already. Honestly, at this point it’s only mandatory socialization, and my mother’s clearly afraid that once I’m done with it, the only people I’ll see outside of a computer screen anymore will be my family and Harun. Best I not tell her that I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.

At the bottom of it all, though, Mum hasn’t really changed. She stays calm, doesn’t tell anyone what’s bothering her. But in her heart she’s like me. That’s why I think she needs to get one of these diaries for herself. She may not be headcracker material, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need an outlet.

Sophie is sleeping at the end of my bed now, her fingers curling around Arabella’s waist. I know why she clings to the doll. It was one of her favorites before, but now it goes everywhere with Sophie, even to the toilet. It reminds her of Niska, one of the Synths we’d helped. She has pale skin and blonde hair, and wears blue contacts over her bright green Synthetic ones to make herself fit in with people. But that fierce look she’ll give anyone who angers or threatens her…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want to have it in my direction. I’d like to think that Sophie softened her up, though. If Godzilla came to London, Soph would soften him up. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s my sister the Freak Whisperer.

Niska isn’t with the others. The last time that my family saw hers, she announced she would go her own way, and embraced Mia, then Max. I found it a bit odd when she seemed to hold back from Leo. They shared a long look, one of both understanding and pain, and then she was gone. Moments later, so was he.

It’s hard, but I’ll admit this: When I log on to the Headcracker site, sometimes I hope I’ll find him online. It’s how he found me, after Dad had acquired Mia and I managed to crack open her system. In a brilliant move, I loaded her code onto the website, asking if anyone understood it. Next thing I knew, I was contacted by this shifty guy wearing a scowl and more than one coat at the time.

Now that he has what he was searching for, Leo has no need to go online to sites like Headcracker. But I keep going anyways.

My family and I, we’re not like the Synths. We don’t have the ability to hold on to every memory. From what I’ve heard, that is a relief for us humans to be able to colour our recollections into what we need for them to be in order to function. But there are certain things that we’d rather not fade away, and when I am on my computer, I remember. When Sophie plays with Arabella, she remembers. When my mother cleans the house in silence and Toby watches the news about the synth protests, I know they are remembering as well. And when Dad is driving his new car around…I’m sure he’s remembering in his own way.

I don’t want to forget them. But I’m more grateful that they can’t ever forget us.

-Mattie Hawkins


	2. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #2

WEDNESDAY

I had the weirdest dream. We were sitting at the dinner table, minus Mum who was working late, eating in traditional Hawkins form. Dad was trying to get Sophie to eat her vegetables by making me eat mine. Then Toby said something about microchips being my favourite – you know what? Forget that rubbish. Rain, accompanied by a blinding flash of lightning, started beating against the outside of our windows. I began to count the seconds between thunder and lightning, but veered into the distraction of keeping track of raindrops. One sliding down the glass, two sliding down the glass…and on ten, Mum came home.

She announced that Mia was her new client, and would help the Synths reclaim David Elster’s estate and assets.

We were all excited, of course. I never even thought to ask how a Synthetic could gain legal representation. So what was my reaction to this dream? Dunno, but I guess it was exciting enough for me to jolt wide awake. Lucky for Sophie, she didn’t get kicked off the bed on accident.

Two things I learned from this dream:

I am repressing an obsessive compulsive disorder. Who else counts raindrops in their dreams?  
I want us to help them again. For them to need our help again.  
This dream is likely due to my writing about them last night. Maybe it’s all just coming from the obsessive part. (yes I know I listed three instead of two.)  
God, my head bloody hurts. It’s five in the morning, and I can’t remember the last time I had a smoke. I might go find Harun later and see if he wants to get wild and drunk this weekend after I get my licence.

Anything to distract me from those damn Synths.


	3. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #3

FRIDAY

Good news is, I am officially London’s safest driver. No, not really. I think I scared my instructor because I was brilliant in everything but parking in reverse. Still, I did well enough to pass.

I was a bit off-balance, though. Today in school, it was announced as a current event discussion that “the Killer Synth” had been sighted in Liverpool yesterday, and prompted a debate of whether or not its manufacturer should be held responsible for the death of the man the Synth killed in the brothel. I didn’t care anything for the debate, but drew shallow breaths until it was confirmed that the Synth had escaped the authorities again.

My God, Niska. What the hell is in Liverpool?

After the debate I caught up with Harun. He used to follow me around, and while I was never trying to string him along, there was something about him that made me feel…feel is a good word to stop at, I suppose. His mum was never home, most likely seeing someone else outside the house, and his dad couldn’t stand to be around him so he was never home either. Harun is alone, and although I hadn’t been thinking about it while I sought him out today, I do feel awful now for it.

I invited him to meet me in the park. He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Yeah, alright.”

That wasn’t good enough for me, though. “Alright? Do you want to go at all?”

He shook his head.

I thought it was acceptable for him to act this way. I hadn’t talked to Harun for a very long time. In my defense, I’ve had other things on my mind, but I supposed I may deserve a little cold shoulder from him.

Then, this happened: “Is there someone else?” He asked me this like he was prepared to run in case I got pissed.

But I was utterly baffled.

He told me that his mum had a certain look on her face after a night away from his dad. The lost look that said she wished she could stay in that memory. He said I had that same look in class.

Well, shit. I told him no, but I don’t think he believed me.

So, the bad news: My friend, best friend probably, will no longer speak to me.

And all I can think about is what Niska is doing in Liverpool


	4. LETTERS FROM NISKA #1

SATURDAY

It has been fifty-six days plus twelve hours since I last saw my family. I could say I miss them, but the independence suits me. No fears and only one regret since I left. I haven’t hurt anyone this time, although I can’t say that I never will again if the need arises.

I’m here inside a dirty penthouse in Liverpool, typing in front of a smudged computer screen that belongs to a stranger named Charlie Blake. Charlie is a computer programmer whose father worked for mine, developing a software for memory capture. He’s been keeping a low-profile since being arrested for using that software to attempt alterations on human personalities.

He is now awake and asking me with a yawn, “Whatcha doin’ with that, Dolly? Writing a novel?”

Charlie is the most irritating human I have ever come across. There have been three times already that I have been tempted to inflict pain just to silence him, and I’ve only known him since yesterday morning. Unfortunately for the both of us, he is the closest remaining connection I have to David’s Synthetic project that has not been corrupted by Edwin Hobb. But he calls me Dolly, and at some point that will need to be addressed.

This is not a diary. I have no need to put my memories to paper for my own benefit. This is a letter, meant for someone else’s benefit. I am doing this because I keep seeing a memory on a loop; it is one of Dr. George Millican telling me that I say more by the things I don’t say in words. But my brother can no longer see me, and if things go wrong, he never will again.

I owe you this much at least, Leo. You already know why I left. But should things go wrong, I want you to know that it was my every intention to return.

-Niska


	5. LETTERS FROM NISKA #2

MONDAY

The Most Irritating Human and I argued earlier today after someone came to the penthouse. After the person left, this is what was said:

CHARLIE: Hang on, put that the bloody hell down!

ME: It’s just a box, Charlie! It’s heavy enough to cause blunt force trauma, and it’s the only thing in your residence that can in case we need it!

CHARLIE: Just a box? Do you even know what kind of box you’re holding?

ME: It’s a console. A decade old, useless video game console.

CHARLIE: It’s a prototype. Worth a fortune on eBay –

ME: What? No, no it’s not –

CHARLIE: And you were going to use it to cause blunt force trauma on my probation officer.

ME: 

CHARLIE: You’re lucky I like you.

I didn’t apologise, if that’s what you’re wondering.

To be truthful, I don’t know why he’s helping me. I showed up at his door and used what he describes as “personal menace” to explain myself. He thought I was only a lunatic until I showed him the drive that contains the synthetic consciousness program. (I’ll come back to that in a moment.)

As I described to Charlie the program’s effects without giving away the specifics, he quieted down. He ran his fingers through his untidy red hair in thought. Then he surprised me by not calling the police. So yes, he’s ridiculous and short on manners, but he is also a scientist. And no, I still don’t trust him. Neither would you.

You read correctly, I did steal the flash drive from the Hawkins girl. She didn’t need it, Leo, nor did you. And neither one of you can protect it the way that I will. So this means I’m going to be the one who decides whether and when there will be more Synths like us in the world.

Charlie mocked me just now and asked if I want to keep his computer. I cannot think of anything else nice enough to say, to you or to him. Likely, I shall have to make this my last entry for awhile.


	6. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #4

WEDNESDAY

It’s been too busy around here to write this past week. On Saturday, Dad celebrated my driving licence by giving me the old car. He said he’d meant it for my birthday, but wanted to wait until it was certain that I could use it. Meaning, he’d only just thought of the idea yesterday and thought it a good one. But what does it matter?

Of course, Mum and Dad will most likely want me to use it for practical stuff, like making a run to the market or rescuing Soph from school when she fakes a fever in the middle of class. All of which I have done nearly every day since Saturday.

I’ve also made up my mind about something. My next licence will be to practice medicine. Synths or no Synths, forget them because I’m going to be a doctor. Maybe a neurosurgeon, so that I can call myself Dr. Headcracker.

Yeah, I didn’t think it was funny either.


	7. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #5

FRIDAY

Okay, people need to mind their own business about me.

 

*** It’s now five hours later and I can write again now that something monumental has happened.

Today I skipped lunch so that I could catch up on some homework, but after dinner I realised how stupid my earlier outburst was.

Toby read my diary. He swears it was an accident, but how does one accidentally read a diary? The single threat of the cover’s stupid pink glitter compromising his masculinity should have scared him off.

And now it seems that Mum has finally caught on and decided after a couple months that it was alright to talk about it.

First, I told her about my plans to go to medical school and become a doctor.

“Oh, Mattie,” she breathed. “That’s wonderful, darling.” But she even though she was smiling, she looked a bit put out.

“What is it?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and told me she knew. She knew why I chose this, and she was proud of me. She just wanted me to do it for the right reasons.

“Toby told me about what he read.”

That little ass, I’m going to kill him.

Mum went on, as carefully as she could. “You’ve always wanted to help people. Whether it’s breaking the law using a screen and a source code or whatever your generation calls it, or tending to Harun because he’s got no one else. That is who you are, and those are the right reasons.”

Sounds good right? Then, she ruins it by saying, “But if you’re doing it because you feel like you need to fill a void in your life, then wait. Decide what you want for yourself, and not because you can no longer help someone out there in particular.”

I asked her if she meant the Synths. Of course she means the Synths. But she stroked my hair and kissed my head and left the room without answering.

Now, up to an hour ago, I was fuming. Thinking about it and ready to burn something.

And then I checked my messages.

An unfamiliar username showed up in my inbox.

We need your help. Can you meet us?

According to Mum, this might not be a good idea. But I’ve got an address, and a car, and some Synths to save. Who the hell cares?


	8. LEO ELSTER'S JOURNAL #1

FRIDAY

Before he died, my father had more journals than he knew what to do with. When he was around, he was constantly pushing me to start one as well. I didn’t see the value in it then, and until a week ago that was still true.

Mia, Max and I – we’re still together in one of Dad’s forgotten, secluded research labs, where he played Frankenstein with his machines before sharing them with the world. We’ve got Fred downstairs, powered down to his minimum charge level. Max found him that way in a forest, and while we keep him activated, his signal must remain weak until it’s determined to be safe from Hobb’s tracking system.

This is our priority. Mia knows me too well, though. I haven’t told her everything. She doesn’t know how bad it is. But it can wait. Fred can lead Hobb straight to us at any time. And the three of us up here are not fighters, not like Fred. Not like…

I can’t fail again. The others come first.

Mia just told me that Max left to meet Mattie. I couldn’t tell her I was against the idea, because who am I to deny Fred all the help that he can get?

I do trust Mattie, and I won’t be unhappy to see her. But she can’t know. I’m tired of her saving me.

I have approximately thirteen days, six hours, and nine minutes left to live.

-Leo Elster


	9. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #6

FRIDAY (continued)

I had no idea how things would go once I met Max. I half-expected it to be a cool reception, or else an urgent one. But Max treated me with a sort of reverence, like I was the Queen standing there outside a foreclosed pub in the dark.

When I followed him to their hiding place, I was a bit nervous. Mia was the first one I saw. She wrapped her arms around me carefully, and I realised I’d missed her more than I thought. But before the tears could fall, I saw him.

Leo approached us, and then stopped. He hung back while Mia asked me about school and Sophie, and how everything else is at home. She really is everyone’s mum.

Leo, though! The first thing he asked about is whether I’d left home discretely. Mia chastised him in her gentle way, but I shot back that I’d told my family I would be spending the weekend reconnecting with my boyfriend. I know, it was cheap, but I did more or less tell my family I was seeing Harun tonight. And besides that, I was now talking to this prat who doesn’t do hello or goodbye.

He blinked in surprise, and then he said, “Sorry, I just thought you would have been a bit more concerned for your own safety. In case this turned out to be a trap.”

As flattering as he makes it sound, I’m not that reckless. I could have told him that, and crossly too, but he looks a bit worse than when I’d last seen him. So I just showed them my phone and said I was perfectly ready to call for help in case some megalomaniac scientist had sent a team to snatch me.

Because that would work well for Hobb’s attempt at a low profile and all.

Mia and Leo both smiled at that. Then they took me downstairs to see Fred.

He’s barely twitching, and they can’t bring him back all the way until we do something about the tracking software Hobb put inside him.

When we charge him up, says Leo, we will have at the most twenty hours before Hobb is alerted to Fred’s signal. We’re going to have to cut it off before then.

It looks like I’m going to be here for awhile.


	10. LETTERS FROM NISKA #3

FRIDAY

Dear Leo,

Charlie and I had to leave the penthouse. Two detectives showed up, but he still wouldn’t let me use his video game box to protect us. We escaped through the window before they could spot us, and now I’m waiting in a car while he picks up some post.

I found out something about Charlie. He told me himself, because he wants me to trust him. He swears no ulterior motive, and he’s of a simpler character than probably anyone I’ve ever known. After his father died, he discovered that the software failed to deliver its intended result. It works well enough manipulating human memories, but he could never manage to get the memories of his dead father uploaded to a synth body.

At first I thought I knew why David would commission such a project. I’d told Charlie, “Beatrice Elster’s memories were successfully transferred to a synth body,” but he kept shaking his head.

“A copy of her memories, yes, but not her personality. She could look like Beatrice and talk like her and remember, but she was entirely different. No, what I’m speaking of is true human consciousness transferred to a synthetic form.

I’ve never seen him quite so ill-humoured as he was when he said: “If you can turn a synth human, why not turn a human into a synth?”

I am not certain who said it first, his father or ours. All I know is that I am for the first time questioning my recent personal decisions. Should I have taken the drive to Charlie and put him in this position so that he can use it to make more of my kind? Should I have taken it at all?

Should I have left?

Charlie is now coming back with a cheque he’d been expecting, so I will have to write more later. He has given me this battered and unclean computer to keep, and I wonder if he might in fact be trustworthy, the way Dr. Millican was before…

This is not a good day for my emotions. I’m sorry.


	11. LETTERS FROM NISKA #4

SATURDAY

We were close once, you and I. More than kin, you’d said. Kindred. Out of all of us, you were the most like me. We had our dark opinions on humanity, and we still enjoyed the outdoors because we were not suited for staying inside a box. We weren’t the happiest of creatures, but long as I had you, and you had me, and we had the others, all was well.

Until that night. You left me in a brothel, to be subjected to pain and humiliation. You, whom I trusted more than anyone, just walked away and told me to wait. This is why I could no longer stay with you, your betrayal broke me. I took a life, Leo. And he was horrible, but he was alive and now his blood is on my hands – and maybe yours.

You understand this in part, I know. But you didn’t know how it felt. You weren’t there.


	12. LEO ELSTER'S JOURNAL #2

SATURDAY

The first thing I lost was my ability to dream. Every night, as soon as I fall asleep my mind slips into a state where I am essentially brain dead, and when I wake it feels the same as my first resurrection. For the last three nights, I haven’t slept. There is no guarantee that I will continue to wake at all.

This morning I couldn’t decide between pills or the bottle, so I took both with me. I was walking around outside in the early hours when I saw smoke from behind a tree.

And then I heard, “Jesus! Are you always going to creep up on me like that?”

Apparently Mattie smokes. She also apparently smokes when she’s hungry. Unfortunately, we are as of this writing a bit short on food rations. I handed Mattie what I did have on me at the time: a fat bar of chocolate.

“Really?” She gave me this look that wasn’t a smile exactly, but I think she was pleased. Of course, she then announced she was thirsty as well, and grabbed for the scotch I’d brought with me.

Sometimes this girl does things for which I have no learnt response. I suppose I should have stopped her or taken it back, but I just stood there and watched her make a strained face while she swallowed.

Then without asking what I thought of it, Mattie made a call to secure her alibi. I thought she was going to call her parents, which alarmed me, but the tone of conversation was different.

My thoughts were that apparently Mattie really did have a boyfriend. After all, there’s so much I don’t know about her. I’ve never trusted someone I’ve known so little about before.

We sat on the soil for a bit after that, in silence at first. Then I felt it fair for me to ask about the phone call.

It turns out she can get embarrassed. She told me he was her friend. “Used to be.”

What happened?

“I let him down,” was all she would say.

Now that I’ve had some time to think, the memory of Niska is returning. She may not ever forgive me. At the time, I’d thought I was leaving her in the brothel for her own protection, as well as ours. It hadn’t even occurred to me what she’d endure.

I let someone down too. Perhaps Mattie and I might be kindred souls. I hope not. She deserves a far better ending than what’s coming for me.


	13. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #7

SATURDAY 

Leo and I spent much of this day running an external diagnostics test using Max as our guide. There’s so much about Synths that I didn’t think could be done. I mean, I did a bit of research – actually a lot, if you count the amount of informational programs I watched at night. But I don’t create technology, I just use it. For some reason, Leo finds it amusing that I can accept them as people and friends, but that I’m still staring while he connects Max to Fred like it’s something any advanced supercomputer should be able to do.

Right. Now I know what to ask for my next birthday.

When the results came back in, Max told us where the control override code that Hobb planted in Fred’s system is hidden. The following step is to hook Fred to a computer (a regular one this time) and run a manual rootkit file deletion.

I wasn’t sure whether they were daunted by this process, but I made a half-hearted joke about which one of us had a background in computer operations.

No chuckles. Mum did tell me at some point that Mia was excellent at deadpan, so maybe I’m in company with higher standards.

Oh my God – I just had the most horrifying idea that maybe I inherited Dad’s sense of humour.

Then Leo says, “Great, Mattie’s got it from here. Maxie and I have to pick up a few things at the store.” He asks me if there’s anything I want, but I’m still rather dejected.

I’ll have a broiled cheeseburger and chips, with a dash of wit and a heavy dose of sarcasm.

(Trust me, I did not really say that.)

Before I knew it, he was gone, leaving me alone with Mia and Fred. Even for a Synth, I’ve always thought her eyes are a brighter green than the other models. There’s so much emotion in there, like when she warned me what Leo would have with him when he returned from the store.

It was nice to catch up with Mia. She has this way about her; it makes me feel like there’s not a certain image that I must present to everyone else. As much as I enjoy defying people’s expectations, I admit to needing a break from that activity on occasion.

And after nearly two hours of running a program that’s supposed to be helpful but slow, Max and Leo returned and I found out what Mia meant about Leo’s shopping abilities.

I counted five jars of jam, each one a different flavour. There were enough biscuits to feed an eighth of London, and bacon. Leo loves bacon.

I think the funniest part was when Mia said, “We don’t have a kitchen,” and I wasn’t sure whether it was meant as an apology to me or as a warning to the boys. I laughed anyway though.

The best part of the evening, though, was when I was sitting by myself, and Leo came to join me. We somehow fell into discussion, which is something I thought before that he didn’t do with anyone.

The Elster family, it turns out, managed to take a small part of their father’s fortune with them when they ran away. Which explains how Leo’s been able to get by this whole time without solid work. Not quite sure how it explains the biscuits.

Then, he asked about me. “Why are you helping us? You don’t have any investment in this.”

It’s a question with a very obvious answer, and I am still deciding whether it’s right to be offended by it, but he looks very tired and people tend to not be as conscious of their words in that case. I told him what my mother said.

She thinks I have a saviour complex or something.

“Why?” He’s confused.

“Because I told her I wanted to be a doctor,” I explained.

For some reason he laughed. A Headcracker doctor?

He said that. My words from this diary are coming out of his mouth. So I did it – I had to know whether he’d found and read it. I showed it to him.

From the way he looked at it, I knew right away he’d never seen it before. Then he smiled, and it was my turn to be surprised.

He said, “Mine’s not as pretty as yours,” taking out from his bag a thin journal with a burgundy cover.

He’s asleep now and I think I’ve only realised how pointless it is to argue with myself over why I’ve been bending over backwards to help them. It isn’t to be a rebel, or to aid on the side of justice, or to be a doctor. Mum, Sophie, even Harun – everyone was right about me.

I am so screwed.


	14. LETTERS FROM NISKA #5

SUNDAY

Dear Leo,

This will be my last letter. I wasn’t going to come back to my writing. All that had needed to be said was already done, and all of it was on the verge of deletion.

Without any knowledge of the situation, Charlie changed my perspective. According to him, I’m not very good at empathy, but it can always be taught. We spoke while I was charging inside a small hotel room. You see, he and I have been played this game since we first met. He asks me what do I want, and I, having quickly tired of answering the same question repeatedly, change it each time.

What do you want, Dolly?

To not be referred to as Dolly any longer.

What do you want, Niska?

For you to shut up and drive.

What do you want Niska?

Well, what do you want, Charlie?

This finally ended the game today. He said, “Do you really want to know?”

“No.”

“I’m helping you. Don’t you feel you owe me some concern?”

This I could not argue with.

“What I want,” he told me, “besides helping a gorgeous blonde who loves blunt force trauma, is a fresh start.”

No prison, no scientific experiments gone wrong. Sounds like a reasonable desire.

But Charlie had one last secret. When he was a teenager, before his commencement ceremony, his former girlfriend had his child. Charlie hadn’t known about it because she’d moved away. Although he never had any solid proof of it, he suspected his dad of sending the girl and the child away using money and manipulation. Charlie discovered everything by hearsay, and wanted his father’s confession. But it was too late. And now with the elder Blake was dead and the memory software a failure, Charlie will never know the family he could have had.

When I asked him why he was telling me this, he said he thought I might be wanting a fresh start as well. I am already on my fresh start though.

Aren’t I?

Charlie doesn’t seem to think so. He says I’m running from something, not toward it. That I really don’t need to make other Synths conscious like me in order to escape my loneliness.

And what does he know?

Empathy. He knows how to feel for others.

I was not placed in a particular role for our family. Mia was the mother, Fred was the protector. Max was our optimist, and I…

I was none of those things. Look back and you’ll remember what I was. I never would have helped someone for nothing in return the way Charlie is. The way Dr. George Millican did.

But empathy can be taught, he says.

What do I want, Charlie?

I want to go to London. I’m coming home.

-Niska


	15. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #8

SUNDAY

My hands are shaking. I can’t –

 

I’m home now. After a day of resurrecting Fred, it was time for me to come home and face my family about where I’ve been. But I haven’t spoken to them. I can’t, not after things went horribly wrong in the lab.

I woke up hearing Mia say Leo’s name. She was shaking him awake, but he wasn’t responding. He wasn’t breathing. Distraught, I asked to perform CPR, but Mia didn’t think it would help. I’ve never argued with her before, but I wasn’t going to wring my hands and do nothing.  
I was all prepared to fight her on this when he opened his eyes. Leo was a bit shaken, and short of breath. I’m not yet a doctor, but in my mind it was chalked up to sleep apnea, a condition where a person experiences a moment of discontinued breathing in their sleep.  
Irritated, Leo swore that he was fine. He wanted us to fully charge Fred. We ran a second diagnostics test with Max. The tracking code should have been eliminated, or at least minimalized, but it was best to be thorough.

In the meantime, I felt like playing cards, but Leo was unfamiliar with poker. He had a lot of questions as I tried to teach him, so many that I thought we’d never start a proper game.  
I told him that normally people play for things like money and chips, or at least some kind of token. He didn’t see the point in betting away something of personal value in the hopes of gaining something else of value as well. But he didn’t give up on the game, even though he became frustrated when Max tried to help him while tethered to Fred. Eventually, he got a full house over my pair of threes, and we both agreed it was time to stop.

Max then announced that Fred’s system was clean, and that it was now time to test him with a reboot. The reboot failed. This was where my part came in. According to Max and Mia, I was good at finding things Leo missed, and coming up with alternative solutions. This must have stung his pride somewhat, I imagine. But he seemed accepting of it now, so I typed into the computer various key terms and kept finding search errors. Once I’d hacked the hell out of it and used various command prompts with no success, I was ready to tear my hair out. Leo knelt beside me and said, “It’s okay, just stop for a moment. You’ve tried all the tricks of the trade, which means that whatever is being missed is something small.”

I took a breath. There was only one thing I hadn’t thought of before, mostly because it wasn’t something that I ever considered highly advanced supercomputer systems to need.

Did Fred have a safe mode?

Mia answered yes, and I accessed the command prompts from the safe mode.

Another reboot later, and Fred opened his eyes. He smiled and said he’d been here the whole time, very grateful and happy that no one had given up on him. He performed a diagnosis on himself just to be certain and found no issues. He was fully charged and not attacking anyone. Everything was in the clear.

Hugs went all around. The Synths embraced each other in joy, and then turned to me. Leo, someone whom I’ve seen flinch from physical human contact, spread his arms, looking happier than I’ve ever seen him, or anyone for that matter.

I smiled and took a step toward him.

Then he crashed to the floor. No breathing, no pulse! What was this?

We did everything we could, but he didn’t respond. Mia – she had me connect Leo to his computer to run a test on him.

A virus. A malicious computer virus is attacking his Synthetic system. He’s had it for awhile and never told anyone. That blasted idiot never told anyone his system was corrupted!

There was nothing I could do. Mia made me go home. I raced past the door and my parents in tears. In my room now. My hands are still shaking even after writing all of this down. 

How did I manage to write all of this down?

How am I going to school like this tomorrow?


	16. LEO ELSTER'S JOURNAL #3

MONDAY

The reboot took much longer than it usually does after a crash. I woke seeing Mia’s face again, but I was frightened because for a devastating moment, I did not recognise her. I can’t say whose reaction was worse, hers or mine. 

She has never been so upset with me. She feels we could have done something if we’d acted sooner. I keep saying the same thing, but no one in my family is listening. This thing Hobb put inside me –   
it’s of a more complicated technology than anything Dad did. My father was never interested in ruining synths with malware. Therefore, there was never any antivirus software made for those cases. 

And even if it did exist, I doubt it would be compatible for someone like me. So, I pushed the matter aside and focused primarily on Fred. Now we have Fred back. And Fred is very upset with me for that as well.

I can’t explain to them why I chose to help Fred over myself. Whatever the reason was, there is a void in its place now. This is the next step of deterioration. All of my memories, the burden I’ve carried for my entire life – they’ll just be gone. The only thing that will be left to follow shall be my body.

For perhaps an hour of pondering on it, I imagined that maybe it would be better stop the pain. Then I wondered what I would see at the end of it. Flashes of my life? Hallucinations of Heaven, a bright cosmic light to follow? No, I'd seen through that suggestion for years. 

I was thinking of that when Mattie showed up. I’ll admit, I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t need the pity, or the charity, or whatever reason she had for coming back. She probably had better things to do.

But the moment I walked out into the sunlight, there was a part of me that was overjoyed to see her again.

With it being just the two of us outside for the moment, I told her that ever since I was thirteen, dying has been nothing new for me. That from a broader perspective, you can see that everyone else is also crawling through the path of their mortality, at varying speeds. Everyone else besides the rest of my family, that is.

I felt it was a good speech. A very “circle of life,” approach. It was a sound, accepting way of leading into a farewell. She thought it was crap.

“So, that’s it. You’re just giving up?”

I told her what I’d told the others, that it was impossible to remove the virus, much less undo the damage it’s caused. I’d detected the virus just one week after my family escaped from Hobb, and all that I know is that it came from him. I was the secondary failsafe, in case we got away. Hobb didn’t want us to be able to work the synthetic consciousness program without him. And it won’t work if any of us are dead.

During the whole time that I was telling her this for my own defence, I was bewildered by how upset she was becoming.

She’s only known me for less than three months now, and she’s already broken the law to help my family.

The way she was looking at me…I just couldn’t understand it.

I couldn’t understand it, not until she cleared the hoarseness from her voice and challenged, “So you’re just going to sit back and become a damn memory yourself, is that it? Don’t you remember anything that’s good enough to live for?”

My mind froze at her question, because she was drawing her face closer to mine. Normally I would have shied away from the touch of her hand on my cheek. But when she pressed her lips against mine, something shook inside me. I think I kissed her back, but it was an automatic reaction and I still don’t know whether it was properly done. Because there was no precedent up until that moment, a loving human relationship was something I’d never thought to want.

When Mattie backed away, what she whispered chills me even now as a recollection:  
You will forget about this, too.

She left with tears streaming down her face. Tears for me. 

She cares for me.

I wish I’d known her when I was thirteen.


	17. THE DIARY OF MATTIE HAWKINS #9

SUNDAY

Things will never be the same for me. Leo is gone.

This past week has been seven levels of hell. I spent most of it wanting to forgo becoming a doctor so that I can go after that son of a bitch Hobb instead.

When I went to visit Leo one last time today, he was sitting against the wall, eyes closed, connected to a charger while Mia, Fred and Max were doing all that they could to make him comfortable.

He leaned his head toward me and said words I never thought I’d hear: I’m glad you came.

I’d brought a bag along, because somehow they’d managed to eat all of the biscuits. He made this sound, like a high-pitched groan but I knew he was trying to laugh.

I sat beside him for awhile, talking to him about useless things, seeing if he would laugh some more. But with what must have been an extraordinary amount of effort, he reached for his bag and told me to take it.

His journal. It had only a few entries in it, but Leo wanted me to have them. He wanted me to know him, even if it was only a fraction of his thoughts.

He didn’t say this, but I believe it to be true: I’ve become important to him.

Mia soon came to us and said, “Leo. Niska is here.”

Niska seemed even paler than she was before, even though I knew that was a physically impossible reaction. She knelt in front of Leo and embraced him ever so gently.

“Who are you?” Leo breathed. “Where’s Niska?”

One of the memories Leo has lost is the image of Niska. He remembers things about her, but with no visual attachment. I never imagined anything could devastate Niska before I witnessed this moment.

She stood and said in an uneven voice, “There must be something we can do.”

It was too late, we tried to tell her. He’s nearly gone.

Or is he? Niska waved over to the man who had brought her there and introduced us. Charlie Blake. His father invented technology for David Elster, technology to transfer human memories and personalities to synthetic models.

“We can do that for Leo,” she said.

It sounded desperately hopeless even before Blake said, “Except I already told you it never worked.”

“It never worked for you,” she said. She explained that his father had already been long dead by the time he tried to transfer the recorded data to a synth body. What if he’d been alive? What if he’d been wirelessly tethered to the synthetic body?

She waited for us to catch up. I think I did first. I was remembering Fred’s signal. I realised that if we could somehow keep Leo’s body alive but his brain activity at a low enough level, the synthetic body could still receive the data with the help of a boosted, shared signal.

Naturally, Max’s contribution to this discussion started with, “Leo is not a telephone.”

Niska further suggested that the memories could be supported by Blake’s software, downloaded into the synthetic system. It sounds like a very complicated idea, I know. I’m not sure even I understand how some of it will work.

But Leo, his voice sounding stronger now that he’d been charged, said, “Let’s do it. I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?” Mia asked.

He unhooked himself from the charging wires and stood up while saying, “Yes, I’m sure! Let’s go - get me out of here and let’s do it!”

Niska took a moment to talk to me in private. She presented to me the flash drive I thought I’d lost and told me that there was something additional that she’d placed on it. A file that she wants me to decide how to use.

Then Leo walked over and said, “This might not work, you know.”

I did know. I wouldn’t have been shedding tears if there was a guarantee of success.

He took his thumb and wiped away a tear falling down my cheek.

There’s so much I want to tell him, but I think right now, wherever he is, that he already knows. Once he sees something, he’s a quick learner.

This time, I got a goodbye and more. He held me tightly. I felt a kiss on my head.

Then he promised me.

“I won’t forget.” He had tears in his eyes too as Niska helped him stumble out to their car.

It was six hours ago.

I know that things will never be the same, no matter the outcome. His body could be cryogenically frozen or locked away and permanently charging, emitting signals to a synthetic lookalike – I don’t know how it will be done.

Leo is gone. But as I read his journal, I feel like I haven’t entirely lost him. And if there’s a chance he’ll come back, I’ll be glad to wait.


	18. FINAL NOTE FROM MATTIE

This is just a note to say there won’t be any more diary entries. I discovered Niska’s letters on my flash drive, and I’m astounded to learn that this whole time, Leo, Niska and I have been writing from different viewpoints about the aftermath of what happened when everyone went their separate ways. It can’t be a coincidence of fate. I feel like it’s meant to be seen in its entirety. So, I am going to stitch it all together. Weave the chapters in order as best as I can. Then I’m going to give it to someone who needs it.

This is for you, Leo.

Come home soon.

-Mattie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to everyone who's been following this story. I can't believe it's only been a week. Seriously, I feel like I've been with Mattie and the Synths forever.
> 
> I did my best to do HUMANS justice with this story. It has its moments, and it has its flaws, but the overall feel of the story was what I concentrated on. The low-key humor, the feels, the dramatic interactions, the relief. So, many cheers to the show that made it possible!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Diary of Mattie Hawkins - written by reflectivemuse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624338) by [bravenclawesome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravenclawesome/pseuds/bravenclawesome)




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